Temecula homeowners looking for shade or a prettier landscape can get free trees through a new city program.

“Trees for Temecula” seeks to boost the city’s tree canopy and replace trees lost to bad weather, disease and other reasons. Planting began Tuesday in a neighborhood off Pauba Road.

Thirty-one trees will be planted in the first wave. Other plantings will take place in mid-April to late May of next year as well as mid- to late November 2012 and February 2013.

Besides beautifying Temecula, trees boost home property values, said Maria Hilton of the city’s public works department.

“It’s been proven that people buying a house will prefer a house that has a tree over one that doesn’t,” said Hilton, who is coordinating the program.

Trees for Temecula is funded by a $75,000 Cal Fire grant and $25,000 in city dollars. The goal is to plant up to 700 trees in the next two years.

City officials already have inspected neighborhoods to see who could benefit from the program. Properties must have enough room for the tree and homeowners must be willing to care for it.

Trees are 15 gallons in size and will be planted by a city-hired arborist.

Hilton said the city has talked with a couple of homeowners associations about the program. Future tree plantings will be much larger in scale, she said.

The Arbor Day Foundation’s website lists tree benefits, including:

Cooling effects that cut energy costs. A tree planted on a home’s west side will lower energy bills 5 percent in three years and almost 12 percent in 15 years, according to the Center for Urban Forest Research.

Absorbing carbon dioxide and emitting oxygen. One acre of forest meets the annual oxygen needs of 18 people, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Jeff Horseman got into journalism because he liked to write and stunk at math. He grew up in Vermont and he honed his interviewing skills as a supermarket cashier by asking Bernie Sanders “Paper or plastic?” After graduating from Syracuse University in 1999, Jeff began his journalistic odyssey at The Watertown Daily Times in upstate New York, where he impressed then-U.S. Senate candidate Hillary Clinton so much she called him “John” at the end of an interview. From there, he went to Annapolis, Maryland, where he covered city, county and state government at The Capital newspaper before love and the quest for snowless winters took him in 2007 to Southern California, where he started out covering Temecula for The Press-Enterprise. Today, Jeff writes about Riverside County government and regional politics. Along the way, Jeff has covered wildfires, a tropical storm, 9/11 and the Dec. 2 terror attack in San Bernardino. If you have a question or story idea about politics or the inner workings of government, please let Jeff know. He’ll do his best to answer, even if it involves a little math.